The fashion week calendar is changing. What does it mean for the industry?

“I believe there won’t be a single behaviour from buyers worldwide,” predicts Stavros Karelis, founder and buying director of London-based concept store Machine-A. He thinks that most US buyers who travel internationally will continue to do Milan and Paris (where most showrooms are based), and some will start with London. “In terms of the European buyers, I believe due to many budget limitations they will decide to begin from LFW [skipping NYFW] and then to Milan and Paris. And for Asian buyers, still the latter option is easier than flying all over to NYFW and waiting until the showrooms begin in Milan and Paris. For the bigger stores and department stores worldwide, the solution is sometimes easier as they can split their teams pending on the markets.”

While Karelis doesn’t expect buyers’ budgets and ordering habits to change much, he thinks the longer fashion month period might impact production times and therefore delivery times, particularly for brands with smaller productions. “This can heavily affect a buyer’s decision if they see that the brand will deliver later than expected,” he says. “There are always ways around it, but overall and especially in a difficult financial moment for the industry, buyers will make the safest decisions and are willing to risk very little. The brands and emerging designers will need to decide when is best to show – during the men’s calendar or the women’s – as showing and selling during men’s gives a better lead time to production and secures earlier deliveries to the stores.”

The knock-on effect on smaller fashion weeks

There are implications for smaller fashion weeks. Berlin has had to shift its dates to avoid its last day overlapping with the first day of New York. Now, Berlin Fashion Week will take place 31 January to 3 February, directly after Copenhagen Fashion Week.

“If [the clash] was with a European fashion week, we could have kept it, but we spoke to some guests who said they might skip Berlin because, if they want to be in New York for the first day, they’d have to travel the day before or earlier to avoid jet lag,” says Scott Lipinski, CEO of Fashion Council Germany. “Luckily, we just started with our communication of dates so it wasn’t harmful for us at this stage because brands haven’t booked their locations yet. If we found out in a month or two, that would have been a problem.” Lipinski says smaller fashion councils weren’t involved in the discussions about the changes to the schedule, but he’d like that to change in future.

Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) is less affected by the gap between New York and London, and is sticking with its plan of showing 27-31 January. However, this now clashes with Paris couture week.

CPHFW CEO Cecilie Thorsmark is stoic about the impact. “The shifts to other fashion week dates [are] not affecting the growth and ambitions of our organisation and activations,” she says. “While we now overlap with couture dates in the AW25 editions, the crossover with international press is minimal, if any, and our SS26 edition in August continues to enjoy unparalleled exposure due to its timing. We are so grateful for the continued support of our international community who prioritise and respect our dates that have remained the same.”

With opinions divided around the calendar changes, the industry is awaiting what the AW25 season will bring. “It creates a whole lot of questions that are still unanswered,” says Solomon.

With additional reporting by Laure Guilbault and Lucy Maguire.

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